April 8 2024
Front lines
1 Israel uses AI to kill in Gaza
2 Oil prices rise as summer driving season nears
3 Food inflation quantified
4 Electric vehicle industry in turmoil
5 OPINION Ukraine’s front line at risk of collapse
Sports
4/8/1935 Works Progress Administration established
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1 Israel uses AI to kill in Gaza
Israel has used AI to select individuals to target in air and missile strikes. That’s according to an investigative story by Israeli publications +972 and Local Call, which cited unnamed intelligence and military sources. The AI system, which is reportedly codenamed “Lavender,” identifies and tracks individuals believed to be militants and recommends places and times to launch strikes that are likely to kill them, often, according to the news reports, when they are at home with their families. Sources told the publications that the Israeli military made the decision to allow even individuals suspected of being low-level militants to be targeted using Lavender and that it dispensed with what used to be a lengthy human legal review process for strikes intended to kill individuals, instead allowing officers to approve strikes suggested by Lavender with minimal checks. The publications attributed the high civilian death toll, especially in the Gaza war’s early weeks, to the use of Lavender in this manner. The story would seem to confirm the worst fears of human rights campaigners and technologists who have for years argued against the increased use of AI in warfare and have worried that, despite claims the technology will lessen civilian casualties, it will actually have the opposite effect.
2 Oil prices rise as summer driving season nears
Drone attacks in Russia, unrest in the Middle East and strong consumer demand have propelled oil prices to their highest level in months, setting the stage for what could be a summer surge in gas prices. The rally in crude picked up speed this week after an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic building fanned worries of a broader regional war. Undergirding prices: a relative lack of crude in global markets thanks to production cuts from OPEC and its allies. Brent crude futures, the benchmark, have climbed 18% in 2024 to exceed $90 a barrel for the first time since October. That is feeding into gasoline, with average national prices measured by AAA up 15% this year at $3.57 a gallon.
3 Food inflation quantified
Prices for hundreds of grocery itemshave increased more than 50% since 2019 as food companies raised their prices. Executives have said that higher prices were needed to offset their own rising costs for ingredients, transportation and labor. Some U.S. lawmakers and the Biden administration have criticized food companies for using tactics such as shrinkflation, in which companies shrink their products—but not their prices.
Price vs 2019
4 Electric vehicle industry in turmoil
Tesla's first quarterly sales drop in four years underscored continuing challenges for the vaunted EV transition in the US. The outlook is far tougher than the industry expected just a few years ago, when inventories were tight, enthusiasm for emission goals was high and Tesla's valuation was soaring. Overall EV sales grew last year, but more slowly and below industry expectations, feeding worries about demand and making the US a global laggard. (Look at Norway, for instance.) EV sales grew just 2.7% in the first quarter compared to a year ago. The trajectory is well short of EPA mandates. A top Toyota executive says the transition will take longer than expected and requires new technologies. Ford is delaying the rollout of an all-electric UV to focus on hybrids. The early adopter era is over, affordability is an issue, batteries weigh too much, Americans still like big cars, government credits in the US and Europe have expired and the Biden plan to roll out 500,000 EV charging stations is 499,993 stations short. To quote Marin Gjaja, COO of Ford's Model e EV division, per The Detroit News, "I don't have a lot of patience for us getting the forecast wrong, but the reality is we all sort of got it wrong." Hertz's "catastrophic" bet on electrification makes for a haunting business-case study. Then there's China. After years of subsidized spending, it is the world's largest producer of EVs and hybrids, which will account for half of new cars sold there as soon as this year, helped by plunging prices for battery components. But consumer demand in the Chinese market, while up 17.4% in the first quarter for pure plug-ins, is slowing too. Consolidation is expected. BYD ceded its crown as the world's top EV seller back to Tesla after just one quarter, though sales were up in March, albeit it with steep discounts. But the story in China is also one of competition and fierce price wars, fed by new entrants like Xiaomi, whose new debut EV sold out of 2024 inventory in 24 hours. Overcapacity will drive more exports. Indeed, after China challenged US subsidies at the WTO last month, Janet Yellen, en route to China for talks, this week reiterated a desire to nurture EVs and batteries here due to concerns over China's massive investment. Against this backdrop, Tesla's first quarter was an "unmitigated disaster," and "a train wreck into a brick wall," in the words of one analyst who is a longtime bull. The 387,000 cars it delivered worldwide was down 8% from a year ago, below expectations and far fewer than it produced. Tesla partly blamed production setbacks and a model changeover. But it has some unique risks for a mass audience, such as its minimalist design (have you ever tried to find the door handle inside a Tesla?) and largely online dealer model. Price cuts in the face of competition have hurt margins. China volume is down amid the competition there. Rivals like Kia, Toyota, VW and Rivian, while far smaller, are growing as they focus on developing more appealing models. Some argue (inevitably) that Elon Musk's higher-profile taste for controversy has hurt too. Shares have plummeted much more than 30% this year. But Musk also has been central to Tesla's rise. JP Morgan warns they have more room to fall. Cathie Wood stands pat. Robert Armstrong points out that the market is inherently unstable and immature but maybe EV demand comes and goes
News Items, Matt Murray
5 OPINION Ukraine’s front line at risk of collapse
everything now depends on where Russia will decide to target its strength in an offensive that’s expected to launch this summer. In a pre-offensive pummeling — stretching from Kharkiv and Sumy in the north to Odesa in the south — Russia’s missile and drone strikes have widely surged in recent weeks, targeting infrastructure and making it hard to guess where it will mount its major push. And according to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers who served under General Valery Zaluzhny — the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces until he was replaced in February — the military picture is grim. The officers said there’s a great risk of the front lines collapsing wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive. Moreover, thanks to a much greater weight in numbers and the guided aerial bombs that have been smashing Ukrainian positions for weeks now, Russia will likely be able to “penetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts,” they said.
According to Zelenskyy, unless the stalled multibillion-dollar package is approved soon, his forces will have to “go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.” He also warned that some major cities could be at risk of falling. Obviously, Zelenskyy’s warnings are part of a broad diplomatic effort to free up the military aid his forces so desperately need and have been short of for months — everything from 155-millimeter artillery shells to Patriot air-defense systems and drones. But the sad truth is that even if the package is approved by the U.S. Congress, a massive resupply may not be enough to prevent a major battlefield upset.
Sports
Men’s NCAA Championship tonight between UCONN and Purdue
South Carolina beats Iowa, Caitlin Clark in women’s tournament and completes undefeated season
4/8/1935 Works Progress Administration established by Congress as part of FDR’s “New Deal”
On April 8, 1935, Congress votes to approve the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a central part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. In April 1935, the WPA was established under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, as a means of creating government jobs for some of the nation’s many unemployed. Under the direction of Harry L. Hopkins, the WPA employed more than 8.5 million persons on 1.4 million public projects before it was disbanded in 1943. The program chose work that would not interfere with private enterprise, especially vast public building projects like the construction of highways, bridges and dams. However, the WPA also provided federal funding for students, who were given work under the National Youth Administration.
Don’t look directly into the sun during today’s eclipse
Thanks for reading!
